Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0611729

From: Renxin Xu [view email]

Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 03:35:18 GMT (32kb)

PSR B1828-11: a precession pulsar torqued by a quark planet?

Authors: K. Liu (PKU), Y. L. Yue (PKU), R. X. Xu (PKU)

Comments: 6 pages, 3 figures

The pulsar PSR B1828-11 has long-term, highly periodic and correlated variations in both pulse shape and the rate of slow-down. This phenomenon may provide evidence for precession of the pulsar as suggested previously within the framework of free precession as well as forced one. Based on the presumption of forced precession, we propose a quark planet model to this precession phenomenon instead. In the model, the pulsar is torqued by a quark planet. We construct this model by constraining mass of the pulsar ($M_{\rm psr}), mass of the planet ($M_{\rm pl}$) and orbital radius of the planet ($r_{\rm pl}$). Five aspects are considered: derived relation between $M_{\rm psr}$ and $r_{\rm pl}$, movement of the pulsar around the center of mass, ratio of $M_{\rm psr}$ and $M_{\rm p}$, gravitational wave radiation timescale of the planetary system, and death-line criterion. We also calculate the range of precession period derivative and gravitational wave strength (at earth) by the model. Under reasonable parameters, the observed phenomenon can be understood by a pulsar ($10^{-4}\sim10^{-1}M_{\odot}$) with a quark planet ($10^{-8}\sim10^{-3}M_{\odot}$) orbiting it. According to the calculations presented, the pulsar would be a quark star because of its low mass, which might eject a lump of quark matter (to become a planet around) during its birth.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0611729